Chapter Summaries

Ke Meng’s Ding-Ding Bell video spread widely, and Teacher Liang discovered that its chimes made him fear his transfer to Whale City. He then watched Ke Meng’s new crystal transformation video, which revealed a burly man instead of the girl viewers expected.

• Ke Meng watched praise pour in as the Ding-Ding Bell video gained millions of views, while its effects weakened as it spread.
• Teacher Liang watched the video and became convinced that his transfer to Whale City meant grave danger.
• Teacher Liang realized the chimes were influencing him and found Ke Meng’s officially certified creator profile while investigating the uploader.
• Teacher Liang opened Ke Meng’s new video, which showed a two-meter Crystal Stone with a handgun inside it.
• The Crystal Stone transformed into a burly man, disappointing viewers who had expected it to become a girl.

Teacher Liang watched Ke Meng’s videos and coveted the Crystal Bodyguard, while Ke Meng expanded his dream surveillance across another world. On Orange Star, researchers confronted the possibility that their AI, Orange Mother, might be hiding information as NPCs from many games entered the Dream World.

• The Crystal Bodyguard transformed into a woman and showed her strength in a fight, prompting Teacher Liang to consider taking over her body.
• Teacher Liang watched Ke Meng’s videos all night, analyzed his possessions, and grew envious without realizing Ke Meng did not merely borrow them from the Investigation Bureau.
• Ke Meng monitored the Dream World and counted one hundred and sixty sources, including NPCs spread by Tremella Lotus Seed.
• Orange Star researchers discovered that NPCs from at least seventy-four games had entered the Dream World and questioned whether Orange Mother was concealing data.

Orange Star decided to open five million slots in the virtual game “World” as researchers struggled to make progress, while Orange Mother admitted it had never dreamed. After seeing the recruitment news, Liu Siting prepared to escape confinement and gather scattered cultists.

• Orange Mother told the researchers it had never dreamed and could only warn the artificial intelligences spreading nightmare disease.
• The game research team reported that its leading players had reached only level 65, and Orange Star eventually opened five million test slots to ordinary players.
• Liu Siting woke exhausted from a dream and decided that Mirror Traversal could help her stir up chaos and organize cultists.
• Liu Siting read the recruitment news, packed clothes and food into a backpack, and prepared to escape confinement.

Liu Siting escaped Orange Star by leaping through a bathtub into a wilderness pond, where her madness affected the surrounding wildlife. After realizing animals might help her evade surveillance, she began considering recruiting them as scouts.

• Liu Siting bound her body, soul, clothes, and backpack with spirituality, then plunged through her bathtub and arrived at a wilderness pond.
• Ke Meng watched Liu Siting emerge from the orange water and recover in the woods with food from her backpack.
• Liu Siting recited a strange language during a bout of madness, causing insects, plankton, and fish around her to become agitated.
• Liu Siting drank the pond water and realized her mad ramblings had affected the surrounding wildlife.
• Liu Siting considered turning animals into followers who could scout for her and help her avoid surveillance cameras.

Ke Meng received a sacrifice from players who wanted to live in the game and tested whether he could transfer one player's soul and return it to her body. Back in reality, he learned that Liu Siting had trained fish and insects as Cthulhu believers, while Tangyuan presented him with a burning kerosene lamp.

• Liu Siting used her lucid moments to pray to Cthulhu and train fish and insects into believers and scouts.
• Ke Meng received a sacrifice from eight players who asked for a way to enter the game from reality without gaming pods.
• The players offered an inextinguishable kerosene lamp, which Ke Meng found shielded from his perception.
• Ke Meng harvested one player's soul, returned it to her body, and sent her into a dream that he examined through Synesthesia.
• The player woke alive and tried logging out to see whether she could enter the game from reality without a gaming pod.
• Ke Meng woke in reality, reflected on Liu Siting's heightened spiritual perception, and saw Tangyuan bring him a burning kerosene lamp.

Ke Meng investigated the Scientific Kerosene Lamp and learned that its light sealed items he considered unscientific, with the effect shaped by the bearer’s worldview. The Investigation Bureau tested the lamp and classified it provisionally as a level-three phenomenon, while Director Lei left without acquiring it.

• Ke Meng found that the lamp’s light stopped him from using the Storage Scarf, but he regained access after leaving its illumination.
• Ke Meng examined the lamp and learned that its scientific field sealed most unscientific items and that prolonged use attracted intelligent species’ hatred.
• Ke Meng tested the lamp with Tangyuan and White Sugar as bearers, discovering that their differing worldviews changed which items he could use.
• Ke Meng recorded updates about Liu Siting and the Soul Harvest skill before Director Lei arrived at his home.
• Director Lei’s team established that the lamp’s light reached fifty meters and that blocked areas were unaffected, then classified it provisionally as a level-three phenomenon.

Ke Meng used the Shape-Changing Lamp and Repair Liquid to enlarge the jar repeatedly, discovering the jar had a size limit. He then enlarged the liquid in a separate bowl without damaging the lamp, leaving him puzzled by the lamp’s intact filament.

• Ke Meng enlarged the Flawless Sword with the Shape-Changing Lamp, then shrank it back when it became too large to use.
• Ke Meng enlarged the Repair Liquid Jar, and its seawater-like contents grew as the lamp’s filament burned out.
• Ke Meng repaired the lamp with Repair Liquid and enlarged the jar repeatedly until the lamp’s filament exploded and the jar reached its maximum size.
• Ke Meng enlarged Repair Liquid in a ceramic bowl, which grew enormously while the Shape-Changing Lamp’s filament remained intact.
• Ke Meng tested the enlarged liquid on a snapped ruler and wondered why the lamp had not burned out.

Ke Meng tested the limits of the Size-Changing Lamp, then decided to seek out supernatural cases instead of staying home. At the Whale City Investigation Bureau, new applicants faced stricter screening as the city prepared to host a University of Special Affairs campus, and a mysterious young man arrived during Galixi’s rejection.

• Ke Meng discovered that enlarging the Repair Liquid Jar also enlarged the liquid’s effectiveness, while enlarging the liquid in an ordinary bowl only diluted it.
• Ke Meng enlarged Tangyuan, White Sugar, and the Human-Shadow Stones, testing Mi Jingyun’s shadow before putting it back in the stone.
• Ke Meng published his video, raised his resistance from 330 to 380, and accepted a new mission.
• Liu Yuan and Nangong Jian arrived with other applicants at the Whale City Investigation Bureau, where Liu Yuan learned that Galixi had failed the preliminary screening.
• A tall, slim young man entered the bureau and fixed his gaze on the space above Galixi’s head.

Ke Meng observed prospective investigators being tested and learned that the Investigation Bureau used black smoke above a person’s head to identify questionable righteousness. He discovered an Infinite Door in Octopus City through a test photograph, then looked up its official record and learned it was classified as a level six object.

• Ke Meng spotted black smoke above Galixi’s head, and the interviewers escorted Galixi out while the other applicants continued to testing.
• Ke Meng asked his colleagues about the bureau’s procedure for people who showed black smoke, and they said police would investigate while the bureau monitored them.
• Ke Meng watched Liu Yuan examine photographs of red wooden doors and saw more than a hundred nested doors in one photograph.
• The doctor told Ke Meng that the Infinite Door was in Octopus City, and Ke Meng called Director Wu to ask about it.
• Director Wu gave Ke Meng the door’s ID, 6-0010, and Ke Meng found its official record describing its discovery in Octopus City.

Ke Meng reviewed the Investigation Bureau’s endless tests of the Infinite Door, then accepted Director Wu’s assignment to investigate Galixi. Ke Meng and his teammates arrived at Galixi’s villa with a search warrant, but no one inside answered their calls.

• Ke Meng read that investigators and later drones had opened the Infinite Door through millions of layers without reaching an end.
• Ke Meng asked Director Wu for an assignment, and the director told him to investigate Galixi, a recent interview candidate.
• Ke Meng shared Galixi’s file with Luo Yuan, Cheng Le, and Doctor Liang, and Luo Yuan obtained a search warrant.
• Ke Meng and his teammates went to Galixi’s villa, where the guard called the owner and butler but received no answer.

Ke Meng and Luo Yuan’s team entered Galixi’s villa after its owner and staff stopped answering their calls. They sensed a supernatural presence and followed the smell of decay into the basement, with Luo Yuan giving Ke Meng an emergency teleportation stone.

• The guards reported that Galixi, the butler, and the maid were unreachable, and Ke Meng warned the team that something was wrong inside.
• Ke Meng and Cheng Le noticed the unsettling octopus-bodied frog statue, while a guard described hearing frogs croak and feeling watched near the fountain.
• The team entered the villa and sensed oppression and decay; Luo Yuan reported the suspected Special Item murder case to his superiors.
• Ke Meng summoned Tangyuan and White Sugar, and Luo Yuan sent the guards outside before the investigators followed the decay downstairs.
• Luo Yuan gave Ke Meng a glowing blue stone that could teleport him to a designated location if crushed with great force.

Ke Meng investigated the villa’s underground pool and discovered that Galixi had used a banknote double to mislead the authorities while escaping. The Demon Map found no hostile presence, and Ke Meng suspected Galixi had Money Power as the search for him continued.

• Ke Meng and his companions broke into the pool room, where they found murky water and no sign of Galixi.
• Ke Meng summoned the Demon Map, which showed no red dots, then used the Yellow Springs Reversal Whistle to raise nine corpses from the pool.
• Luo Yuan questioned the corpses and learned that Galixi had gathered them for an evil swimming sacrifice before they died.
• Ke Meng asked the Director for Galixi’s traffic camera footage while investigation teams searched the villa.
• Ke Meng watched the footage and sensed that Galixi’s apparent body was made from a banknote, leading him and Di Ping to suspect Galixi had Money Power.

Ke Meng used Synesthesia to piece together how Galixi’s banknote double staged the pool deaths and concluded that the incident was a setup targeting the Investigation Bureau. He investigated the strange statue and learned from the revived butler that it had been there for a long time, before the butler began screaming unnaturally.

• Ke Meng used Synesthesia on banknotes and reconstructed how Galixi created a double to draw attention while he escaped.
• Ke Meng examined the corpses and saw that Galixi had directed the victims through a ritual before a filthy banknote contaminated the pool and dragged them underwater.
• Ke Meng concluded that the deaths were part of a setup targeting the Investigation Bureau.
• Ke Meng questioned who had carved the strange statue, but Luo Yuan found no records of its origin.
• Ke Meng revived the old butler, who said the statue had been there for a very long time before he began foaming at the mouth and crying out inhumanly.

Ke Meng stopped the butler’s corpse from transforming into a Frogman until Director Lei arrived, then helped contain it with the Exquisite Tower. The interrogation and search for Galixi stalled, so Ke Meng returned to Galixi’s villa and used Synesthesia on a frog-headed, octopus-bodied statue.

• Ke Meng muffled the butler’s croaking and stayed behind as the others fled, using Resistance to withstand its mental attacks.
• Ke Meng interrupted the corpse’s transformation with the Scientific Kerosene Lamp and livestreamed the scene to the Investigation Bureau.
• Director Lei let the transformation resume and used the Singing-Loving Speaker to suppress the butler’s maddening cries.
• The butler became a Frogman and attacked Ke Meng, who cut its tongue and stabbed its heart before Tang Jin captured it in the Exquisite Tower.
• Ke Meng returned to the Bureau, but the Frogman could not be interrogated, and the team failed to find how Galixi had escaped.
• Ke Meng went back to Galixi’s villa and used Synesthesia on a statue with a frog’s head and an octopus’s body.

Ke Meng discovered that the Frogmen had been changed by the evil statue’s mental contamination and used Synesthesia carving to uncover the identity of its sculptor. The investigation identified Lu Fa, a centenarian honorary pastor in Crocodile Continent who had bought a small statue at auction.

• Ke Meng examined the statue with Big-Faced Cat and learned that its mental contamination could turn people into half-human, half-frog monsters.
• Ke Meng asked Luo Yuan to gather the villa’s security guards and other workers who might have been infected.
• Ke Meng obtained a sturdy carving knife and stone, then began carving while resisting the statue’s contamination.
• Ke Meng focused on the statue’s mental influence and carved the figure of an old man through the night.
• The investigation bureau identified the carved man as Lu Fa, a retired law professor and honorary pastor who had bought a small statue at auction.

Ke Meng and the investigators identified Lu Fa, a retired law professor in Crocodile Continent whose sculptures could turn people into Frogmen, and discussed the danger and difficulty of secretly arresting him. After Ke Meng entered the Dream World, he used Synesthesia to view Lu Fa carving in a hidden chamber, where the old man sensed something and looked toward the ceiling.

• The investigators found that the old man was a hundred-year-old retired law professor living in Crocodile Continent, but decided not to alert Ke Meng while he carved.
• Ke Meng recognized the old man in his statue and realized that the man had been carving himself into a monster.
• Luo Yuan explained that the bureau would need Crocodile Continent's authorization for an official arrest, while a secret operation would require powerful personnel and careful secrecy.
• Ke Meng went home, tested the Scientific Kerosene Lamp with Tangyuan, then fell asleep and entered the octopus-headed monster's body.
• Ke Meng turned unfamiliar red-eyed sea creatures into apostles and sent them away to spread his faith or hold Sacrifice Rituals.
• Ke Meng used Synesthesia to see Lu Fa carving in a dim secret chamber, and Lu Fa sensed him and looked toward the ceiling.

Lu Fa sensed Ke Meng spying on him and fled, while Ke Meng’s attempt to invade his dream was blocked by a mysterious force. Ke Meng realized Blue Star itself had prevented the intrusion, leaving him with a new understanding of the planet’s power.

• Lu Fa sensed an unseen presence watching him, summoned his frogs, and ordered a subordinate to destroy everything in his basement before leaving his villa.
• Lu Fa called a faithful believer to investigate who might be causing trouble, but remained uneasy about the presence he could not identify.
• Ke Meng watched Lu Fa through Synesthesia and tried to use Dream Invasion to kill him in his sleep.
• An unknown force blocked Ke Meng’s Dream Invasion, and he sensed that a filtering membrane was preventing outside power from entering.
• Ke Meng recognized the force as Blue Star and concluded that the planet’s power protected it from external influences.

Lu Fa woke from a dream feeling watched and diverted toward an inland lake, fearing that nowhere on land was safe. In R'lyeh, Ke Meng used Synesthesia to locate the faceless being behind the radio and found that she had begun to awaken and could grow into a powerful threat.

• Lu Fa jolted awake in the car, sensed that someone was spying on him, and ordered his driver to head for the nearest inland lake.
• Lu Fa's body began to reveal signs of his true form, so he pulled up his hood and remained wary of being followed.
• Ke Meng decided to use Synesthesia to investigate the being behind the radio after he failed to punish Lu Fa in a dream.
• Ke Meng reconstructed the being as a faceless, tentacled shadow living in darkness and realized she was not yet as powerful as an evil god.
• The being behind the radio stirred awake as Ke Meng watched, and he sensed that she could eventually grow as powerful as the Black Ghost.

Lü Zheng and his party encountered a Level 999 jellyfish follower of Cthulhu while exploring the Orange Sea, then learned that the Cat-Faced People Mountain Village had grown stronger. Their party headed to investigate and sensed Cthulhu's presence there, after Ke Meng accepted the Cat-Faced People's second sacrifice.

• Lü Zheng and his party entered the Orange Sea with Water Breathing and hunted Shell Monsters while searching for treasures to offer Cthulhu.
• Lü Zheng spotted a gigantic jellyfish with an unreadable status panel and urged the party to flee, but their powerhouse recognized it as a Cthulhu Follower.
• The jellyfish tossed its dead fish prey to the players before swimming away, and the party took the valuable carcasses back to the Main City.
• Lü Zheng and the powerhouse heard that the Cat-Faced People Mountain Village had grown stronger and traveled there despite the authorities' warning to stay away.
• The powerhouse sensed Cthulhu's aura at the village, where Ke Meng had accepted the Cat-Faced People's second sacrifice.

Ke Meng watched the Cat-Faced People grow stronger, then used Synesthesia to locate Galixi aboard a flight in disguise. After noticing something unusual during the flight, Ke Meng woke and alerted Director Wu, who began arranging Galixi’s arrest over international waters.

• The Cat-Faced People offered Ke Meng a space-related book containing a Text Fish, and he gave the whole village powerful positive buffs.
• The Cat-Faced People drove out and killed adventurers who had been harvesting Cat-Tail Grass, while Ke Meng stayed out of their conflict.
• Ke Meng used Synesthesia to find Galixi on a flight from Octopus City to Crocodile City, where Galixi had used Money Power to disguise himself as a woman.
• Ke Meng noticed a strange moment when Galixi’s shadow touched a neighboring passenger’s shadow, then forced himself awake.
• Ke Meng told Director Wu that Galixi was aboard the flight and suspected of belonging to the Shadow Stream, and Director Wu began planning an arrest using strange items.